When Krish Narendra was eight years old, he started doing some curious engineering work, without realizing the consequence. He completely disassembled a brand new wall clock that his father had bought for the family home.

“I was not sure how to put the parts back,” Krish said. “Obviously, I was not very happy about the incident nor were my parents. On a positive note, on that day I decided to pursue the engineering field.”

Now Krish, an electrical engineer and PhD, is general manager of technology and quality at ERLPhase Power Technologies Ltd. in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He has achieved more than 20 years of experience in various digital signal processing design and implementations on embedded operating systems, as well as the Windows development environment for Power System Protection, Monitoring, Control and Analysis on advanced microprocessors. Krish has been a chief architect for synchrophasors (phasor measurement unit) and IEC 61850 station and process bus protocol implementations.

Krish uses his experience from the past and from his current position to share technologies and skills with power system protection engineers.

“In our industry, there is a large gap in the courses or methodologies adopted in the universities vs. the industry practices,” he said. “I would like to contribute to bridging this gap before we really run out of power system protection professionals.”

Krish will speaking at “The Smart Grid: From Concept to Reality” conference on June 10 in Winnipeg. He will participate in the Integrating Smart Grid Technologies into Transmission Networks panel session and will present Synchrophasors in WAMS as part of the discussion. The panel will cover how instrumentation and intelligence can be added to the existing bulk power transmission infrastructure to optimize power flows and make the system more flexible, resilient and efficient. It will also address the challenges of integrating the abundant renewable energy resources of this region to the grid.

“Around 65% of the faults (interruption of electrical power) and blackouts are happening due to human mistakes. The phasor measurement technology will assist human operators to significantly reduce the errors and improve their decision making capabilities,” Krish said.

For the past five years, he has made a number of WebEx and invited presentations on the phasor measurement technology to various audiences in the United States, Canada, the Middle East and India.

Krish came to be part of the ERLPhase team in 2007 after working with APT (Alpha Power Technologies), the group that introduced advanced numerical relays in the North American transmission power grid. He initially worked as a senior software developer; then as research and development manager when NxtPhase Corp. took over APT. NxtPhase subsequently sold his division to Easun Reyrolle (India) in 2007, which incorporated it as ERLPhase Power Technologies. 

He has not only worked as engineer and researcher; his experience with teaching makes him an effective communicator. He made a number of presentations during his M.S. and Ph.D research days and worked as assistant professor, teaching undergraduate electrical engineering students.

“Professor Vijay Sood from Concordia University, Montreal, offered me the research assistant position in 1996, which was my first entry to Canada,” Krish said.

Krish enjoys “challenges, challenges,” and learning and interacting with people as part of his job. He tells student to “Believe in yourself, be passionate, and dream about your work; success will follow.”

He does separate work from spare time, which he dedicates to spending time with his family and listening to music. He also likes to bowl, golf and attend social gatherings.